And All The Ships At Sea
by Mr. Fnord
Summary: A collection of drabbles written for and originally posted in the SpaceBattles Kantai Collection Fanfic Thread, mainly focusing on American ships, oddities and the occasional weird crossover.
1. StoryCorps: USS Nevada

_Excerpt from StoryCorps interview of USS Nevada, (date redacted):_

The thing we all remember is how our first go-round ended. Sinking or scrapping, unless you're one of the lucky girls who got to retire as a museum ship. Sometimes it's fast: Ari once told me that she remembered the bomb hitting and having just enough time to think ' _oh son of a bitch!_ ' then boom! it's over. Sometimes it's slow. Mine was slow.

It wasn't my worst memory, though. That was always Pearl, trying to get underway with all hell breaking loose around me, all those ships taking fire, Ari and Okie dying, and it's all I can do to just get out of the way and beach so even if those little bastards did me in I wouldn't block the inlet. It's the feeling of helplessness that keeps getting me, that not only are they attacking, they're going to _get away with it_ and there's not a damn thing on God's earth that'll stop them. Still pisses me off some, if I'm going to be honest.

But my sinking? This weirds out a lot of my fellow ships, but it doesn't bother me that much. I was the oldest battleship still in service when the time came, and honestly I was just _done_. I'd served in two World Wars, been shot at by pretty much everybody on both sides, served my country as a guinea pig for their shiny new doomsday device and you know I think I'd earned my rest. I really had. It wasn't like they could put me in mothballs or give me a museum berth after Crossroads, and it was better than sitting patiently in a scrapyard waiting for them to turn me into beer cans. My war record earned me a Viking funeral and it was damned generous of the Navy Department to give me one.

Though now that I think about it, getting turned into beer cans doesn't sound too bad. "Nevada Beer." I think I might've found my career after this war's over.

Anyway.

I still dream about it. Most of my memories from the first go-round I'm my old hull, the Nevada-class battleship I was. When I dream about getting sunk I'm always in my human body. I'm just drifting on the sea, nothing but water and just in visual range are Iowa, Pasadena and Astoria. I can see Iowa clearly and she's crying, the other two aren't looking so hot either, and she's apologizing after every salvo and I just want to tell her 'it's okay, honey, it's better this way, and I'd rather have a friend and a successor send me to the Great Hereafter than some cold-eyed lunatic trying to murder me and my crew.' But I don't say that, because Iowa wouldn't understand and because it's not the right time to say that.

Instead I just laugh. I laugh and I laugh and I laugh while all hell breaks loose around me, Pearl all over again as Iowa's big shells splash all around me and the five-inchers chew away at my superstructure and I'm laughing like the Joker because they're tearing me apart but even still it's _not enough_ to sink me. The Kido Butai came close but didn't sink me, Hitler's Atlantic Wall that was going to keep the British and the mongrels out couldn't even _touch_ me, two A-Bombs only singed me and now the best and brightest of us couldn't _finish the freaking job._ It's like I'm one of those whatchacallits the twenty-first century kids are all about, the living dead. Yeah, zombies, that's what I'm thinking. I'm a zombie, too stubborn to just give up the ghost no matter how hard I get stomped on. I'm laughing, I roll over on my back and I can't stop laughing until they finally run out of shells or patience and they call in a flight of heavy torpedo bombers to finish me off. I'm laughing so hard I can't hear the torpedo, but it comes in and that's goodnight Gracie.

Not long after I got back, I tracked down Iowa. She'd been in the game since the beginning of course, she never shied away from a fight, but it took me some time to get her alone. Guilt, you know. She'd never liked using one of our own as target practice. She teared up a little, but I finally could tell her what I needed her to hear, and I think all that time in and out of mothballs gave her a little maturity, so she was finally ready to hear what I had to say. Not the most fun conversation we ever had, but by the end of it I think we understood the other's positions pretty well. We still talk every other day, gotta love phone technology these days. In fact, assuming we survive this thing we've sworn to stand up for the other if we ever get married.

The smart people say we shouldn't be able to remember stuff like this, but then the smart people say we shouldn't exist period, so to hell with them. Me? I don't know if we always felt like this, or felt anything at all, but I'm glad we do. This new go-round isn't always the smoothest thing, but I'd rather rough seas than no sea at all.


	2. StoryCorps: USS Arizona

_Excerpt from StoryCorps interview with USS Arizona, (date redacted):_

 **Tell us, if you'd like, about the Joint Fleet Command.**

Oh, wow. Yeah, that was an experience.

So the basics of it were, the war's starting to heat up and now a lot of countries are summoning their old ships back to fight the Abyssals. Somebody got the bright idea that, hey, we've got all these superpowered girls, we should let them get together, compare notes, maybe put together a big task force and stomp out some of the bigger nests. The first team-up was going to be the US Navy and the Japanese, which made sense at the time. We both had the biggest kanmusu fleets, hell the JMSDF were the ones to put a name to what we are, and we had the most experience in fighting Abyssals, so pooling our knowledge and asskicking ability made sense.

The really funny bit was I almost didn't get to go. There was _debate_ , considerable and vocal _debate_ about letting me go to Yokosuka for the Joint Fleet rotation. It surprised me at first when the Navy started dragging their feet on it. I mean, I was one of the first returnees, I'd been in four or five major engagements already including the battle of the Potomac and the defense of the Azores, but I wasn't anything _special_ really. The Navy already had Iowa and Mo' back, and compared to that I'm just a beat-up old Pennsylvania class. Why all the fuss about letting me go overseas?

Then I started looking into it and... oh my god. Just _oh my god_. I could say it was politics in action but honestly? Politics is too limiting a word to cover something this _purblind stupid_. There were two major threads to the "don't send Ari to Yokosuka" faction. The first was a rambling screed about how the Japs were responsible for the Abyssal threat in the first place and if we sent any of our ships there they'd end up taken apart to fuel the Japanese Empire reborn and yadda yadda yadda. The other argument just pissed me right off. This was a petition from a bunch of well-meaning but stupid people who argued that I, being the USS Arizona, the sacred and pure virgin martyr of Pearl Harbor, shouldn't be allowed to do my damn job in the Pacific because my delicate flower would wilt if confronted by the ships who sank me in '41. No lie, this was an actual argument that came out of actual people's mouths. I don't know how to respond to that, except to revert to my instincts as a battleship.

There are rumors that I invoked my 14-inchers in an argument with the Chief of Naval Operations. I won't confirm or deny those rumors, but long story short, I got to go to Yokosuka.

The first couple of weeks were, well, they were tense. Obviously the shadow of The War loomed over everything, including the war that we were technically supposed to be fighting in as allies. Unavoidable, really. Most of us had made some peace with it before, just to be able to sail, but there's always that one nagging issue we get hung up on, and being in proximity to the Imperial Japanese Navy, sometimes even the ship that sank us... it wasn't going to be a smooth transition. There were issues, sometimes arguments. There was only one real fight when Kaga and Enterprise got into it the end of our second week, but honestly I think that was less about The War and more about Enterprise flirting with Akagi during carrier practice.

The thing that finally broke the ice, that let us gel into Joint Fleet Command instead of being a bunch of American and Japanese ships pushed together by politics, was the Great Umbrella War. Iowa had wrangled her way onto the task force, and we all knew that the Japs had finally managed to summon Yamato a couple months before everything kicked off. So I'm thinking, they're thinking "the fight to end all fights," right? The gun battle between the queen of Japanese battleships and the ultimate expression of American firepower. People wanted to see these two throw down for years, it was apparently one of the great what-if fights of the war.

So we get off the transport—not going to lie, as much as I'm a ship I do love the convenience of air travel—and the senior kanmusu are there to meet us with their admiral. And right in the middle is this tall girl with an I-kid-you-not pretty pink parasol over one shoulder and immediately I peg her as Yamato. I'm going through the standard greetings and they're processing that _yes_ , I'm here and _no_ I'm not going to shoot them point-blank with my guns while screaming hysterically about revenge when Iowa comes down the ramp. Now, if you've never seen Iowa in her civvies, or even just without her rigging, you have to remember that she's got this sort of small-town girl aesthetic going for her, all dresses and big sun hats and most important of all her pretty _blue_ parasol that she keeps handy at all times. So she comes down the ramp and spots Yamato and the two lock on target and freeze, all the conversation just _dies_ as the pair of 'em start circling each other like wolves. For a second I'm looking for a place where I can provide fire support, or at least get the hell out of the way when those two start unloading at each other and just like that it's over. Iowa walks off to the barracks and Yamato rejoins her fleet, all sunshine and smiles.

Anyway, the first couple weeks pass with only minor stuff going wrong. Arguments, some passive-aggressive stuff between the cruisers, Enterprise going ten rounds with Kaga for the hand of fair Akagi, stuff like that. We're getting into a rhythm but you can feel the tension in the air. Whatever the brass had in mind, this whole Joint Fleet thing just wasn't working out, and maybe we'd have been better off trying it with the Brits or the French or even the Germans. Things are kind of getting glum around the mess when all of a sudden...

I remember it was just after lunch halfway through our fourth week at Yokosuka. I'd stopped for a bite to eat after gunnery practice and was just finishing off my rice when Iowa strolls into the mess, bold as brass, rolls straight up to Yamato and just _slams_ her umbrella down on the table. Everything stops, even the cooks don't make so much as a whisper. Iowa looks right at Yamato and says "I understand you consider yourself a duelist." The Japanese ships are all confused, I'm not much further behind and Yamato just sips her tea and says "I, Yamato, have some expertise in that" like she's commenting on the weather and Iowa just _grins_. Iowa smiles a lot but she doesn't grin much, the last time I saw her grin was when she took out that Sea Princess off the Grand Banks so I'm thinking _oh shit here it comes_.

Iowa challenges her to a duel "right here, right now. Unless you're a coward." And Yamato comes back with "the soul of Japan is never afraid!" and we all scatter to the walls because at this point we're expecting the ceiling to come down in the next ten seconds and then it happens. The moment when we stopped being a bunch of strangers and started being a team.

Yamato draws her parasol and yells "en garde!" Iowa grabs her umbrella and the pair proceed to swordfight all up and down the messhall Errol Flynn-style, all shouting "riposte!" and "touche!" and other dramatic fencing terms. For the longest moment we're all just staring, completely slackjawed at the unfolding madness. We don't know how to respond to this at all. Then Nevada, bless her, shouted "C'mon Yamato! You can take her, she's only a sixteen-incher!" and the floodgates opened. We're shouting and cheering and laying bets on who's gonna win and it doesn't really matter who's American or Japanese because we're all kanmusu and this is two of our best just messing around how fun is that?

The "duel" ended pretty much the only way it could: a mutual KO with plenty of "dying soliloquies" from the downed combatants. Yamato passionately begged Saratoga to avenge her, and Iowa did the same with Tenryuu, and with such passion how could they have said no? We didn't get a single thing done for the rest of the day, but it was so worth it.

And that's really where Joint Fleet became more than just a political thing and started being the legend it is now, with two umbrellas in a messhall. There's some other bits, like the time Nevada and I took Kongou on a three-day to Tokyo and introduced her to the glory of Long Island iced tea, but that's a story for another time.


	3. Your Carrier Is Evolving!

It's the middle of the night in San Diego, and deep in the surprisingly-luxurious-for-the-Navy kanmusu barracks, USS Hornet is dreaming.

* * *

 _Santa Cruz. Again. Just like every night for the last week, it's goddamn Santa Cruz. Sometimes she's in human form, sometimes she's still a ship but it's always the same. This time she's both: ghosting around her empty decks like the ghost of Christmas past. The fires have all gone out, by this point there's nothing left to burn. The crew's long since evacuated, the skipper being the last of course, leaving the bridge with a wordless apology. She never blamed them, not really; in the end it was better they escape to keep the fight going, avenge her. But it meant waiting for the end all alone. Just her, wallowing gently in the waves, already hard over and bound to capsize any minute now._

 _And there on the horizon, the tiny shapes of the Japanese task force. She's on the flight deck now, standing on the high edge watching as the enemy ships poke in a little closer. She knows how this ends—she knows how_ ** _she_** _ends—but she still can't tear her eyes away from the sight as Makigumo and Akigumo launch their torpedoes. The trails are almost invisible in the gloom, but she watches as they streak in towards her hull. One hits, then another, then another, then the last. Her hull groans and gives way, finally, and she begins her long slow descent. The ocean rises up to meet her and all she can think is_ ** _it wasn't supposed to be like this_** _._

 ** _I want to live._**

 _The sea swallows her, and normally she'd wake up at this point, gasping and sobbing. This time, the dream continues..._

 _Now she's drifting invisibly through a shipyard. Some small, wry part of her thinks_ ** _Great, now I'm trapped in "This Is Your Life."_** _The dock she's pulled towards holds the partially-finished skeleton of a large ship, a battleship or aircraft carrier. As she passes by she can see the workers industriously welding the framework together. Her attention is caught by two men standing off to one side, clearly supervisors of some kind. "They're changing the name?" one says, chomping furiously on a cigar._

 _The other shoves his hat back in a what-do-you-expect-me-to-do-about-it gesture. "Yeah," he says. "Orders, the Department's changing the name. More than that, they're saying this one comes from the top."_

" _The top of what?" The smoker asks, suspiciously. The other man points skyward and makes a gesture to ward off evil. "All the way at the top in Washington," he says._

" _Oh. Well, shit. Guess we'd better get on changing the name, then."_

 ** _What was that all about?_** _she wonders, turning away and catching the glare of a welding torch right in the eyes. The bright flame and sparks white out the world, and she feels like she's falling..._

 _And comes back to the world aboard herself. Sort of. The decks feel different. Not_ ** _wrong_** _different, but unfamiliar. Like a numb hand that was still in the process of waking up. She walks through the corridors unseen and intangible, watching her crew go about their tasks. She gets the sense that she's been at sea for a while now, but she doesn't remember this particular cruise. Then she turns the corner and almost runs into the admiral._

 _Her eyes snap wide with recognition. This isn't any old admiral, this is_ ** _her_** _Admiral. Her_ ** _skipper_** _, the man who took her to sea for the first time, who taught her everything she knew about sailing and fighting. He's standing a little off to the side, out of the way, looking around fondly. His eyes meet hers for the briefest moment, and in that moment she realizes that not only can he_ ** _see_** _her, that gruff old man she'd known and loved was looking more than a little misty-eyed. One of the ratings, a kid really, notices the admiral standing there and stops. "Is there something wrong, Admiral?" he asks._

 _The admiral shakes his head. "No, son, there's nothing wrong," he says. "Far from it." He reaches out and touches her bulkhead. His hand is warm and light, a father ruffling his daughter's hair. "I was just thinking that I'd lost my little girl but here she is, safe and sound." She can feel tears start to well up a little too, while the poor sailor doesn't seem to know how to process that._

" _She's a good ship, sir." He says after a moment. "Hasn't let us down yet."_

 ** _I won't let you down, sir. I never did._**

" _She never did," the old man says fondly. "And she never will. Just remember to treat her right, son. You treat her like a lady, and she'll always bring you home." She comes to full attention and snaps off a perfect parade-ground salute as the admiral, satisfied that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, pats the befuddled sailor on the shoulder and walks off towards Officer's Country. She smiles and closes her eyes and feels the bustle and hustle of an active-duty warship close around her like a blanket._

* * *

The alarm clock buzzes and it's another lovely morning at San Diego Naval Base. Hornet flails a little trying to shut the evil thing of evil down before finally hitting it (and not turning it into so much scrap Bakelite this time, won't the quartermaster be so proud?) half-rolling out of bed and stumbling towards the shower. For the first time in a long time, she feels like she's had a decent night's sleep. A quick shower, a change of clothes and she puts on her cap before striking out for a bit of breakfast before training practice.

Egg McMuffin and coffee in hand, Hornet walks onto the archery range. Enterprise is already there, as usual, the big overachiever. Probably a middle-child thing, she thinks. E's not so deep into her archery Zen that she misses Hornet's arrival. "Morning, sis," she calls cheerfully. "Getting in a little practice?"

"You know me," Hornet replies easily. "Always up for a little destruction. Besides, have to keep my skills sharp in case there's Abyssals hiding in the rosebushes." The two laugh a little at that, then Enterprise perks up. "Hey, nice hat," she says. "Trying something new?

Hornet blinks, then pulls the hat off her head. It's not the sort of thing she normally wears, a simple black baseball cap with her name stitched on it in gold. "You know," she says a bit distantly, "I don't remember getting this, it was just sitting out on the dresser this morning. I thought you or York might've gotten it for me." She shrugs. "Well, it's a nice hat."

"That's what I said," Enterprise says. Hornet sticks her tongue out at her sister and calls up her rigging, getting ready for practice. She unholsters her crossbow and gets ready to aim when Enterprise's surprised whistle breaks her concentration. "Holy cow," she says. "Hornet, did, um, did you go in for a refit recently? You look... different. It's a _good_ different but that's definitely not your usual."

Hornet blinks and examines the bits of her rig she can see. The crossbow doesn't look any different, but her flight deck is strange. It's longer and wider, and there's a side elevator that she's sure she didn't have before. Blinking, she holsters her crossbow and gingerly feels along her superstructure. The familiar antennae and protrustions are missing, or shifted, or otherwise very different from the ones she remembers from her ordinary run-of-the-mill Yorktown-class superstructure. Almost as if...

 _I wonder if this is my third or fourth life?_ Hornet thinks irreverently. She looks at Enterprise, who's looking back at her with increased worry, and grins. "Oh," is all she manages to say before her rigging disappears and the world goes away for a while.


	4. The Day

December 7th always _sucked.  
_  
Not so much because it was the anniversary. That wasn't fun but it was something the three of them (six if you counted the three who were refloated, which they did but most others didn't) had come to grips with early on in this puzzling second life. Remembering it hurt, sometimes it hurt a _lot_ , but there were ways to handle it. The Day didn't suck because they couldn't handle it, if anything it sucked because everybody _else_ couldn't handle it.

The Day started as it usually did in San Diego, warm with a 100% chance of annoying seagulls. Arizona woke up, took a second to make sure nobody was about start something (Abyssals thankfully didn't have much of a sense of irony) then went through her early routine: shower, dress and down to the coffee shop near the gate.

"Mornin' Steve," a freshly-scrubbed Arizona mumbled to the clerk. Steve thankfully already had her usual order of two mocha lattes already sitting fresh and steaming out on the counter. "Oooh you are a godsend," she said as she grasped her precious cargo. The future had many weird parts to it, but as far as Arizona was concerned coffee that tasted like something people would willingly drink instead of like something squirted out of Satan's asshole made up for most of the weirdness.

"You know me, ma'am, always like to be one step ahead of my customers," Steve said. Arizona downed one latte in a rapid gulp, tossed the cup and fished out a tenner to pay the man.

"If NI had guys like you there probably wouldn't have been a war," Arizona noted, leaning in on the counter. "Speaking of, anything I ought to know about this morning?" Steve and his cofffe shop were popular with not just the base kanmusu but almost everybody. As a result Steve had as good if not better understanding of what was happening than the petty officers.

"Welll," Steve said, looking a little shifty. "You're not gonna like this but we've got some protestors down at the gate."

"Protestors? Is this the save the whales guys or-?"

"Nah, this is different. It's a couple dozen idiots pissed that the Japanese girls are on-base."

Arizona blinked. "What?" she said. "Why the hell is anyone mad about the exchange officers?"

Steve shrugged helplessly. "Well it's the carriers, innit?" he replied. "And, well, you and your posse are here and it's, well, _that day_. They think it's disrespectful."

"Disrespectful." Arizona's confusion faded, replaced by a slow simmering anger. _Of fucking_ _course_ _its about The Day._ "Right, thanks Steve. Guess I'd better go take a looky-loo."

"Ma'am? No disrespect or anything, but isn't that what MPs are for?"

"Probably, yeah. But sometimes a battleship's gotta do what a battleship's gotta do."

There weren't that many people. Which was all for the best, really. If this had been a mass movement Arizona might've been forced to bombard the city and the Admiral frowned on shit like that. Even so, it wasn't great: like Steve had said, about two dozen nitwits of varying ages carrying signs along the lines of NIPS GO HOME and REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR.

Arizona suppressed a sigh as she sauntered up to the gate. "Howdy folks," she said in her best just-a-plain-ol'-cowgirl-from-Tuscon-don't-mind-me voice. "So what seems to be the problem?"

One greying, pot-bellied man, apparently the leader of this little band of fools, stepped forward. "We're here to lodge a protest against the Imperial Japanese Navy stationing their forces here," he stated with great dignity.

Arizona scratched her head. "Well, that'd be a neat trick considering the Imperial Japanese Navy's been defunct for seventy-odd years," she drawled. "On the other hand, _our allies_ the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force have some people here. Is there a _problem_ with that?"

"You're damn right there's a problem!" This came not from Mr. Dignity but a new protestor, younger and weedier. "Do you know what they've got there? It's those Jap carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor! What kind of PC shit puts them on the same base as Arizona? Don't you people know what they did to her?"

 _Yeah? And what about Oklahoma and Utah, you ass? Or Vada, Callie, Weevee and Oglala, and Shaw and Downes and all those poor turkeys at Hickam? Do you actually_ _care_ _or are you just stroking your dick?_ Arizona wanted to say that, but decided against it. Some fights weren't worth the ammo expended. "I assure you _sir_ the Navy is well aware of the Pearl Harbor attack," she ultimately said to Weedy. "But that was another war. We're all on the same side-"

"Sure you are," Weedy sneered. "Right up to the point where the Japs stab us in the back. They did it in the forties, they tried to buy us when they couldn't conquer us in the eighties and now they've got magic ship monsters to finish the job they started at Pearl!"

"I trust those girls with my life, not to mention the lives of everybody between here and San Francisco." Arizona said blandly. "I have done ever since they were stationed here."

Mr. Dignity put a hand on Weedy's shoulder before the younger man could retort. "I think we're getting off-track here," he said. "What's your name, sailor?"

Arizona grinned fiendishly. _Oh this is rich, they're "defending my honor" and they don't even realize..._ "USS Arizona, BB-39," she said, snapping off a summoning-circle salute.

* * *

"... and it kind of degenerated from there," Arizona finished. The other four kanmusu collapsed in their chairs laughing.

Quite a few hours after the debacle at the gate, she and her immediate circle had retired to a nice, mostly quiet spot on the harbor to handle The Day in true Navy tradition. Thankfully the Admiral was understanding, or had prepared the liquor budget accordingly.

"Oh, oh my," Utah giggled. Of the five ships she was the only one still completely sober thanks to her Mormon heritage. "I can imagine the _looks_ on their faces."

"It was pretty great," Ari admitted.

"We can't take you _anywhere_ ," Oklahoma scolded her half-heartedly. Arizona shrugged.

"Hey, they're lucky I stopped at Steve's first. I might've opened up with the AA otherwise because some shit just shouldn't be seen before the first coffee of the morning."

"You're a menace. A _menace_ I say," Okie pronounced.

"But we love you just the same," West Virginia added.

"Aww, shucks." Arizona swirled her rum a little.


	5. The First Ship

The whole thing started with a deceptively simple idea.

Well, not exactly. It _really_ started when the Abyssals cranked up their attacks. Things started getting dicey as more powerful Abyssal ships started jumping targets. The kanmusu soldiered on as best they could, but after one hellish attack on Manila left Yamato _and_ Iowa both in drydock for three months the admirals of the Anti-Abyssal Alliance knew that they were—finally—completely outgunned.

Which is where the idea came in. It had been floating around in professional summoning circles almost since the beginning of the war, though mostly as a theoretical exercise. Up until now, the researchers argued, each nation had been focused on the ships of their respective navies. This had _worked_ , nobody was questioning that, but it was to some extent redundant effort.

But with the Abyssal threat, the human race wasn't just a collection of nations. What if, so the reasoning went, they tried to summon a ship _together_?

* * *

The summoning happened in Kenya. The professionals thought it symbolically important to attempt the ritual as close to where humans evolved as possible. It seemed weird to the admirals to do a summoning so far inland, and it was even weirder to the kanmusu who'd volunteered for it. Twelve girls, representing all the navies with kanmusu and as many different classes as possible, stood at selected points around the largest summoning circle ever built. Technicians and shamans scurried to and fro, checking lines and making sure that everything was ready.

"So," asked Phoenix, "what exactly are we doing here? I've never seen this dance from this side."

"I have done this twice before. It is quite simple." Kirov said, idly inspecting her nails. "We stand here and add our strength and will to the ritual, like big batteries. It works, we have a new sister. It does not work, then the smart people go to Plan B."

"I get the feeling that the admirals want something more than another girl this time," Victory noted. "Perhaps a global weapons upgrade of some sort?"

"Victory-sama would be amazing with heavy cannon and guided missiles!" Akatsuki cheered, to the British man-o-war's mild amusement.

" _Whatever_ they're hoping for," Richelieu said, "this is the _largest_ summoning I've ever seen. One wonders what they're going to get regardless of hopes."

"Eyes front, ladies," Texas said. "Looks like we're getting started."

* * *

Off to one side a pair of summoners observed the beginning of the ritual. They were as close to completely inconspicuous as they could manage. "You know," said the short, dark man, "I remember you saying something about surprises once."

"Do tell," said the tall blonde at his side.

"Mm, what was it? Oh yes, 'let a complex system repeat itself long enough and eventually something surprising might occur.' Are you surprised yet?"

The blonde tilted her head a fraction. "A bit," she allowed. "God may have plans but He also has a sense of humor too. Or so it seems. I don't have a better explanation for this."

"I've missed that," the dark man said. "Not knowing what was going to happen because it'd happened before. What d'you think they're going to get this time?"

"Oh," the blonde said with a funny grin, "I've got a pretty good idea..."

* * *

The air throbbed with arcane power as forces scientific and sorcerous poured into the circle. The inscribed lines flared blue and the assembled kanmusu involuntarily donned their rigging, adding their own force to the energy coursing into that strange void where ship spirits dwelled when the world was done with them. The power manifested as a wordless plea:

 **The world is endangered.**

 **Our people are dying.**

 **Humanity needs its protectors again.**

 **For the love of humanity, please come.**

And then everything went sideways. The light in the circle flared green, then gold and red and white in rapid succession. A wind came out of nowhere and howled through the circle. The kanmusu cried out in surprise as a blast of lightning tore through the circle's center, then everything went dark at once.

Stunned, the summoners stared as the lights came back up and they realized there was a new face standing at the spot where the lightning had struck.

The newcomer was tall and broad like a battleship, but also carried a quiver that looked suspiciously like a carrier's flight deck. She looked older than the other kanmusu, gracefully sliding into middle age with statuesque beauty, and her eyes locked on the far horizon. Whoever this kanmusu was, she had clearly _seen some shit_ in her lifetime.

"Now _that_ was a frakkin' wake-up call," she said, then sighed. "No rest for the weary, huh?"

"I'm afraid not, ma'am," said one of the officers haltingly. "Um... I'm trying not to be rude but... who are you, exactly?"

The kanmusu blinked hard. "What, seriously? How soon they forget." She saluted. "Battlestar _Galactica_ , BS-75, reporting for duty Commander."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This particular drabble was a one-shot that I never planned on taking beyond the initial summoning scene, which provoked Some Debate in the thread because that sort of thing is frowned upon. (Depending on the time of day and the alignment of the stars.) But, you know, whatever. I still like it and so it gets to go in my permanent archive.


	6. Burying the Hatchet

**Author's Note:** The following drabble was originally written for a prompt from high-concept-idea machine sasahara17. The idea (condensed because explaining the full idea would take an extra thousand words) was that only a small number of shipgirls returned to fight the Abyssals immediately, that these girls spent five long years fighting pretty much everywhere, forging their own identities above and beyond World War II, and then their fellow ships started answering the call en masse... only the new fish still held onto their old wartime issues, making everybody's lives that much more difficult.

This is "Burying the Hatchet," the story of how the first wave of returnees beat some sense into the next wave. Sometimes literally.

* * *

 _It is too goddamned early in the morning for this,_ Arizona thought sourly.

Granted, it was a perfectly decent Oahu morning: blue skies, sun shining, birds chirping, surfers wiping out etc. But the main reason for the battleship's bad mood didn't involve the weather. Say, rather, it involved the commander of the Joint Mid-Pacific Task Force and their most recent returnee trying to glare each other to death from the opposite sides of the commander's desk. And poor old Arizona, as senior American ship on base, was forced to play peacemaker.

Again.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "So what exactly is the issue here?"

The battleship Nagato kept her eyes on the enemy. "Our newest recruit refuses to sortie with her assigned carrier group."

"I don't trust their ability to keep me safe," USS Enterprise shot back. "Besides, I've sortied without escort before with no problem."

"You're not in San Diego any more, Enterprise-san," Nagato said. "This is the deep Pacific, right in the middle of Abyssal territory. Nobody leaves sight of the islands without escort, that's the rule."

"To hell with your rule! I've been here three weeks and all we've done is sit here! Why the hell aren't we taking the fight to the enemy, huh? Or don't you want to leave Pearl?" Enterprise snarled. "After all, you've wanted to be here how many years now?"

 _And that is where this needs to end._ "Okay ladies, neutral corners, please." Arizona said levelly. The two battlewagons blinked, realizing they had an audience. "Chief, do me a favor and take five, huh?"

Nagato raised an eyebrow. "Arizona-san?"

"Seriously, go play Pokemon or something." Arizona waved towards the door. "I think me an' little E here need to have a discussion... American to American." Nagato looked dubious, but after a long pause nodded and left the room with as much dignity as she could muster. Enterprise watched the battleship leave, then turned to Arizona with a triumphant smirk.

"That was great, Ari, the way you shut her-"

 _"Skip it, sailor._ " Arizona snapped in full command voice. The carrier stiffened to attention. "Have I got your attention? Good. Because right now you're gonna explain."

Enterprise blinked. "Explain what, ma'am?" In reply Arizona spread her hands.

 _"This._ I know for a fact that after you got called up you badgered everyone from the line cooks to SecNav to get this posting, and since you've been here you've been nothing but insubordinate and disrespectful to the joint command and _especially_ to Nagato. So do you actually _want_ this fucking job, sailor? And if not, why the _fuck_ are you here?"

Enterprise opened her mouth, closed it, then gave Arizona a mulish look. "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

Arizona nodded. "You can't really dig the hole you're in any deeper. Go ahead."

"I swore an oath to protect the United States from all enemies... so why the hell do we have those slant bitches on our islands?" Enterprise growled. "They wanted to take Hawaii during the war and now we're just letting them waltz into Pearl? What the fuck, Ari? They killed you, or don't you remember that?"

Arizona held still for a long moment. "I am aware of that, yes," she forced out. _Which is why I'd rather be anywhere else._ "I remember it quite clearly and _thank you_ for dredging up that memory, sailor." Enterprise blanched. "But that war's long gone, E. It's been over for decades. Hell, _you_ survived the war, you ought to know that. I'd expect this rar-rar-kill-the-Japs bullshit from Lexington or Hornet, but you?" The battleship shook her head.

"They took everything from me, Ari," Enterprise muttered. "You, my sisters, half the goddamned Pacific fleet..."

"And we took everything from them and more besides," Arizona replied. "Almost all of their ships, most of their _cities_ , god-only-knows how many civilians... it's like the man said, war's a crime against civilization. But it's _over_. We won, we put our men in charge of Japan and they've been friends for longer than we've been enemies. You need to accept that."

"I can't just walk away from it like you did." She gave Arizona an angry, pleading look. "I came out here to defend Pearl because I wasn't here to do it last time. This is American territory and I can't stand the idea of that smug Jap ship striding around like she'd planted the Rising Sun on the flagpole. I have to be here, this is where I'm needed, please..."

The elder warship didn't say anything, just looking at Enterprise, thoughtful and a little sad. "Is that your final answer, E?" she asked.

Enterprise nodded. "I guess it is," she replied.

Arizona sighed. "Very well, sailor. I'm recommending to the Admiral that you be transferred back to the mainland-"

"Ari no, please don't."

"-until such time as you can be trusted to follow orders from the joint command." Arizona said heavily. "I don't want to do this kid, I really don't, But you know that oath you swore? We all swore it too, and butting heads with our allies isn't going to cut it."

* * *

One of the little-known facts of life in Pearl Harbor was that His Imperial Majesty's Battleship Nagato had two offices. The first office was the one everybody knew about, all tasteful teak and oak wood, sensible desks, flags, paintings, portraits of important politicians and so on. This was the official office, the one where important people were greeted, assignments given, and subordinates reprimanded. Adjacent to that office was Nagato's _real_ office, the one where most of the actual work of running the Pearl Harbor Joint Taskforce and the defense of Hawaii actually took place. That office was equipped with overstuffed chairs, a very large television suitable for playing any video game on the market, J-pop and anime posters on every flat surface and only the best alcohol in the Pacific.

When Enterprise and Arizona began to discuss their... issues, Nagato left the outer office for her inner sanctum, where she could brood and anesthetize herself with the finest moe Japan's entertainment industry could produce. A few (thankfully shouting-free) minutes later, Arizona stepped through the door and flopped into the nearest chair with a loud and hearty "Ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."

"That didn't go well, I take it," Nagato noted.

"It could've gone worse but, yeah. Not the way I wanted it to at all. The next convoy for San Diego's leaving on Wednesday, Enterprise will be with them." Arizona shook her head. "I was so sure she'd be okay for this job, she saw the end of the war, she knew what happened..." she trailed off. "Goddammit."

Nagato sighed. "It was too personal for her, considering her record. Not all that surprising."

"Yeah, I just had hoped. And now we're down a fleet carrier to boot."

"Can we expect reinforcements?

"Maybe. I called Settle after giving E her orders-figured it'd be safer to let him know before the grapevine told him-and he said he'll try and find us someone." The American shrugged. "Maybe we can spring Ranger from Bremerton, or swap for one of the UK girls on the Atlantic side, I don't know. Settle said he'd divert a group from Seventh to Pearl, that'll give us some breathing room."

"Agreed," Nagato said. "But we still need spirit support if we're going to do more than hold Hawaii." She smiled faintly. "I wonder if we could get Saratoga back out here again?" Arizona stifled a snort.

"As much fun as watching the two of you canoodle is," Arizona said lightly, and Nagato turned an entertaining shade of pink, "Settle isn't going to give up his chief of staff for anything short of storming the gates of Hell." Suddenly, Arizona's pocket buzzed. "Huh, and speak of the devil," she said, pulling out her phone and taking a look.

 **SweetSisterSara:** Got a pic for you!  
 **CactusPatchGirl:** Is this a nude selfie? 'Cause if it is, you should send those to Nagato.  
 **CactusPatchGirl:** Not judging, I just don't swing that way. :)  
 **SweetSisterSara:** Bitch. No, take a look this. New girl, just summoned yesterday.

Curious, Arizona looked at the picture. It was a kanmusu, naturally, what looked like an American carrier to Arizona's eye. Her outfit was the basic abbreviated khakis of a late-war ship, and her rigging looked slightly different to the more familiar configurations of the Lexington and Yorktown classes Ari knew best.

 **CactusPatchGirl:** Okay, I'm stumped. Essex class?  
 **SweetSisterSara:** Better! CV-41 ring any bells? :D :D

Arizona blinked. "Holy shit," she said. Nagato, who'd been watching the text conversation, blinked. "Did something happen?" she asked.

 **CactusPatchGirl:** No. Fucking. Way.  
 **SweetSisterSara:** We're just as surprised as you are. Settle's hoping to bag a Forrestal next LCS  
 **SweetSisterSara:** Not expecting that to work out but w/e  
 **SweetSisterSara:** Anyway! Checking her out  & she wants to go home to Yokosuka. Interested?  
 **CactusPatchGirl:** WANT

"For the benefit of those of us who haven't read all the books on post-war naval history?" Nagato asked.

"Settle's lunatics just summoned the last ship from the war, Nags," Arizona replied. "USS Midway, the last fleet carrier built during the war, commissioned literally the week after VJ-Day. She's... all the tricks we learned from the Lexingtons, the Yorktowns, the Essexes, your carriers, all rolled into one."

Nagato whistled. "How does she feel about, well, us?"

Arizona laughed. "I don't think that'll be a problem."

 **CactusPatchGirl:** Your gf agrees with me, we want us some Midway action!


	7. Burying the Hatchet: Akitsu Maru

**Today, Pearl Harbor Joint Command:  
**  
A secretary ship's work is never done, she thought ruefully as she examined the trio of squirming destroyers. All three were second-wavers, and while they didn't have any particular _issue_ with foreign ships on base their mainland records said they had... _other_ problems. "So," she said. "Would you like to explain yourselves, or should I just send you back to Honolulu PD?"

USS Wren tried to suppress a wince, and failed mightily. "Sorry, ma'am," she said. "We didn't really mean for things to go like that, it's just-"

"That townie started saying shit about the skippers!" USS Haggard put in angrily. "We're not going to just stand there and take that shabby crap, Sarge!" The secretary raised an eyebrow.

"While I'm sure both Nagato and Arizona appreciate you three standing up for their honor," she noted. "They'd probably prefer less beating up civilians. That's not a given, though," she added. "Arizona does like a good brawl."

"Hey, where _are_ the skippers?" USS Benham asked. "Shouldn't they be the ones chewing us out?"

The secretary smiled faintly. "They're both down at the airfield welcoming in the new fish," she said. "And just for your information normally I handle the routine discipline around here."

The three destroyers blinked. "Huh," Wren said finally. "Why you, though? I mean, no offense ma'am, but you're the secretary, not a warship." The secretary's eye twitched, and Wren flinched, fearing that she might just crossed a line too far.

* * *

 _ **Yokosuka, Years in the Past (But Not Many):**_  
 _  
The scorn she could handle. It was the pity that was the worst part._

 _"Why did she come back? She's not a warship."_

 _"The poor thing, ready to help but nobody has any use for her..."_

 _She'd taken to sitting in the cafeteria's far corner, curled up around herself, not speaking. The others had given her some distance... but it didn't stop the whispers. Until one day, she had no idea how long after her return, the American showed up. She was built like a battleship, all dark hair and flashing eyes._

 _"Hey kid," she said without preamble. "Name's Arizona. How'd you like to come work for me?"_

 _"Why?" Her voice was rusty, it came out as more of a croak. Arizona tilted her head._

 _"Why what?"_

 _"Why do you want me? I'm not a warship, I can't f-f-fight," she spat. "I'm just a glorified cattle ship, why would you want me in your fleet?" She ducked her head and mumbled, "I shouldn't have come back."_

 _Arizona got in close, putting her hand on her shoulder. She flinched at the unfamiliar contact. "But you did come back," she said. "That's not worth nothing. Help was needed and you answered just like us. Maybe this gang of idiots don't know what to do with you, but we're putting together a whole-new gang of idiots and well, maybe we can figure out what you're here for. In fact, I've got a pretty good idea."_

 _She gave the American a flat look. "Really."_

 _"Yep. See, Naggy knows the big picture, we've got this little destroyer girl that's hell-on-wheels as a tactician, me an' a couple of the others we're damn good in a fight but we need something more. Something... organized. Something that you can't get from the Navy, bless their black little hearts." Arizona grinned. "A million admirals cry out from their grave in outrage when I say this, but when you need to get shit done, you don't go to the Navy, you go to the **Army**."_

* * *

Master Sergeant Akitsu Maru took in the wayward destroyer's unthinking jibe with only the faintest touch on bad memories. "You're right, Wren," she said. "I'm not a warship. That's your job. You know how to fight. I'm the secretary ship; that means I know how to do _everything else_. I keep you fed, I move you to the places where you need to be, I assist Nagato and Arizona in working the strategic game. I deal with the complaints and the edicts from above. I pay _bail_ , when I have to. I get you in fighting trim and I keep your asses wiped and your noses clean. You fight the Abyssals, and I do every other thing there is to do on this base. You know why? Because you _only_ know how to fight, and I've had to learn how to do everything else."

The three Fletchers blinked. "Um, sorry ma'am," Wren mumbled. "Didn't mean to, um, step on that."

"You're forgiven," Akitsu sighed. "For that anyway, you've still got to make amends to the good people of whatever dive you're inhabiting this week, assuming there are any to be found..."


End file.
